Fragments
by Rorrim J. Tori
Summary: During Ichigo's Bankai training, he comes across a sword that's a little... different from the rest. -Sort drabble series-
1. Fragments

The barren landscape was littered with swords: jagged swords, curving swords, broken swords. The ringing of metal from the aforementioned swords echoed in the heavy air as two people fought their way around the boulders and crevices.

A dark-skinned girl, perched atop a rock, watched the two fighters intently.

Ichigo cursed as another sword shattered in his hands.

"83." His opponent said quietly.

Zangetsu swung his own blade down at Ichigo. The teen grabbed the nearest sword in panic to hold it above his head. It shattered on impact, giving Ichigo small scratches from the metal shards, but saving him from a would-be fatal attack.

"84."

Ichigo abandoned the broken hilt and started running. His eyes scanned the horizon, looking at and the innumerable number of swords impaled into the earth._ 'These swords all represent pieces of my soul. I need to find the right one in order to beat the Old Man. But how do I find it in the first place.'_ He cursed under his breath again, unsure of how long he had already spent trying to achieve the necessary second release. He could feel that time was running out.

He was about to grab some random sword to his left when something caught his eye. A couple yards to his left was a weapon that highly resembled his original blade. It wasn't sitting up on a pedestal, or anything spectacular like that, but it _screamed_ to be noticed. The white metal with black cutting edge glistened in the sunlight; its ebony hilt wrap fluttering in the slight breeze.

He stopped, staring curiously at the sword. All of these swords had various shapes, but only _this_ one had an alternate coloration.

The air around it hummed with power. Violent, merciless energy.

_'Take me...'_ it seemed to say, _'I will make you win.'_

A brief glance around showed Zangetsu to be nowhere in sight. _'Probably giving me a few seconds to catch my breath and find another sword.'_ The one in front of him silently beckoned. He took one step closer and another step back, uneasiness rolling his stomach. Pure killing intent radiated from it, rivaling that of Kenpachi. '_What is up with this sword? Why is it like this? It doesn't feel like any of the others... What piece of my soul is this? Maybe, with this one, I can win...'_ He reached out to it, fingers almost brushing the hilt. _Almost-_

"Ichigo."

The voice behind him made him jump, his hand falling away from the white sword.

The sword spirit flicked his own weapon to the side. "Have you had enough already?"

Ichigo grabbed a random sword next to him, pulling the zig-zag blade out of the stone "No way."

The fight resumed.

As he fought through the frail blades one-by-one, he would occasionally glimpse the white sword; glowing with tantalizing power and strength- absolutely terrifying, and yet curiously tempting.

_'Maybe… after this sword I have breaks... maybe I'll get it...'_ Ichigo kept thinking to himself, prying his eyes away from the cruel beauty of the inverted sword. _'Maybe…'_

* * *

Decided to write about the early-ish chapters of Bleach. (I guess this makes this a throwback fic? xD  
Thanks for reading

Bleach belongs to Tite Kubo


	2. Within

He could feel it getting closer to him everyday: the hollow.

_His hollow._

Even when it wasn't directly tormenting him, he knew it was never gone. It was a dark feeling, a creeping paranoia that, like a shadow, followed him ceaselessly.

And it was getting stronger.

"You can beat it." His friends said encouragingly. "You're strong enough to resist it."

They didn't understand– they couldn't.

He knew he could resist it at least for now.

But not being strong enough wasn't the main issue.

He didn't fear not being able to fight back; he feared not wanting to fight back.

There were times during battles when his vision darkened, when he could feel the mask itching to form on his face; the hollow would greedily pull as his mind, begging to release its murderous energy on something... and he would almost want to comply and sink into the nothingness.

It was always a struggle to regain control, but letting go seemed almost unfairly easy.

Even when outside of battle, there was a looming pressure over him, something beyond reason telling him to give in to the madness. It was an incessant nagging in the back of his mind.

"Give in. Give in. Give in." It said, and he was tempted to obey.

At first, he obviously blamed it on his hollow; influencing his subconscious mind and altering his thoughts. But as time went by, he learned the feel of the hollows influence and came to a conclusion that those thoughts, though strange and without reason, were purely his own.

As much as he feared losing control, part of him wanted to slip up. A part of him wanted to fall.

And that terrified him more than anything.

No one knew his feelings, none of his friends would understand if he told them. Not even the Vizards seemed to have shared these emotions.

Or maybe they did and, like him, were just too ashamed to admit it. Either way, he wasn't getting sympathy from them.

He distanced himself from his family and friends, scared of what might happen to him. Scared of what he might do.

'Give in. Give in. Give in. Give in.'

It would be easy, so very easy to. Like a stone rolling down a hill, all he would need to do is give a little push.

_His_ instincts would take care of the rest.

Surprisingly, the hollow never taunted him with these fantasies and emotions; never said "relax, let me have control for a while… you know you want to."

He knew he was running low on time. Every instance where the hollow lunged for control, he found himself resisting less and less; his will to stay sane waning.

He needed to do something to escape this cycle before he lost the strength to fight back.

Before he stopped wanting to fight back.

* * *

Honestly, I forgot that I even wrote this. I'm adding this as a chapter to Fragments, and making it into a short drabble series because I can yay!


End file.
